Saturday, July 23, 2016

Iraq snapshot

Saturday, July 23, 2016. Chaos and violence continue, secret dealings on behalf of Hillary Clinton get exposed by WikiLeaks, questions arise about where the money for the Iraqi people will actually go, and much more.

You'll see Hillary in the White House With My Vote—When Pigs Fly! Watch her pander to Blacks at the Convention.

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No, not because the War Hawk chose Tim Kaine.

Her cult will look the other way and pretend like Tim Kaine's abortion stance doesn't matter the same way they ignore the way Hillary has chipped away at abortion rights since she first stepped onto the national stage.

No, no one's talking about Tim Kaine because no one -- probably not even his own mother -- has ever found Tim Kaine remotely interesting.

Nearly
20,000 emails sent and received by Democratic National Committee staff
members were released Friday by Wikileaks, with one message in
particular raising questions about the committee's impartiality during
the Democratic primary.

The
revelation threatened to shatter the uneasy peace between the Hillary
Clinton and Bernie Sanders camps and supporters days before the
Democratic convention kicks off next week.

The
leaks, from January 2015 to May 2016, feature Democratic staffers
debating everything from how to deal with challenging media requests to
coordinating the committee's message with other powerful interests in
Washington.

Michael Sainato (OBESERVER) points, out, "In its recent leak of 20,000 DNC emails from January 2015 to May
2016, DNC staff discuss how to deal with Bernie Sanders’ popularity as a
challenge to Clinton’s candidacy. Instead of treating Sanders as a viable candidate for the Democratic ticket, the DNC worked against him and his campaign to ensure Clinton received the nomination." Tom Hamburger and Karen Tumulty (WASHINGTON POST) add, "One potential complication is that Sanders’s supporters are crucial to
Democratic hopes of retaining the White House in the fall. They bring to
the contest both passion and a potentially vast donor base."

And when not attempting to derail the Bernie Sanders campaign, the e-mails reveal attempts at subverting journalism.

She sees this item in a brief from an MSNBC newsletter (sent to all who sign up for them):

>>> On Wednesday, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski
called for DNC Chair Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) to
“step down” over her handling of this year’s Democratic presidential
primary.
>>> After playing a clip of Wasserman Schultz, Brzezinski said,
“This has been very poorly handled from the start. Ot has been unfair,
and they haven’t taken him seriously, and it starts, quite frankly, with
the person that we just heard speaking. It just does.”
>>> Brzezinski added of Wasserman Schultz, “She should step
down.”
>>> Brzezinski’s co-host, former Republican Congressman Joe
Scarborough wondered why Sanders would “get in line” for the Democratic
Party, given that they “rigged the entire thing,” and that if he was in
Sanders’ position, “I’d say, ‘Go straight to hell, I’m running as an
independent.'”

The news sounded just as good this week as it did in 2007: With U.S.
backing, Iraqi forces have pushed savage extremists out of key
territories in what seems to be a turning point in the campaign to rout
the insurgency.The lesson of 2007, however, was that such
victories can be fleeting. The jihadist movement that today is known as
the Islamic State found fertile ground in areas the U.S. government
thought had been pacified. Now, diplomats and analysts warn, the
same toxic mix of a security vacuum and sectarian governance could
threaten the gains against the Islamic State that the Obama
administration touted this week at gatherings in Washington of officials
from the anti-Islamic State coalition.

We've been noting the lack of attention given to a political solution for over two years now.

The White House is all on board with sending more US troops into Iraq, more weapons there, more everything military.

That's the only thing they've done.

Today, the US Defense Dept announced:

Strikes in IraqRocket artillery, attack, fighter and remotely piloted aircraft
conducted 10 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of the
Iraqi government:-- Near Albu Hayat, a strike destroyed an ISIL mortar system.-- Near Habbaniyah, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL fighting position.-- Near Mosul, three strikes struck three ISIL tactical units
and destroyed an ISIL vehicle, an ISIL unmanned aerial vehicle, an ISIL
mortar system, ISIL-used engineering equipment, an ISIL tunnel system,
and two ISIL assembly areas and suppressed and ISIL rocket position.-- Near Ramadi, a strike destroyed an ISIL tactical unit and an ISIL fighting position.-- Near Tuz, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL vehicle and an ISIL fighting position.-- Near Ar Rutbah, a strike struck an ISIL vehicle-borne bomb storage facility.-- Near Qayyarah, a strike destroyed an ISIL vehicle.-- Near Sultan Abdallah, a strike destroyed an ISIL weapons storage facility.

Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic
events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a
single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a
single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle
is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons
against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for
example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or
impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not
report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number
of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual
munition impact points against a target. Ground-based artillery fired in
counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a
strike.

Sorry to interrupt the chorus of "We Are The World" but how will it be ensured that the money goes to those in need?

Kerry's comments included, "The goal of our pledging conference is to raise money to help Iraqis in
four priority areas: humanitarian aid, de-mining, immediate
stabilization, and longer-term recovery."

These would have been questions to pursue but Elise Labbot didn't.

CNN's reporter got the first question -- when you're the State Dept's
pet you get those sort of favors -- and immediately turned a briefing on
Iraq into Turkey.

No one was surprised.

When everyone's whispering -- true or false, I don't know -- that you're
sleeping with John Kerry, presumably, you're calling the shots. He is
after all married (to a very good friend of mine, so watch your back,
Elise, if the rumors are true and say prayers of thanks that you don't live in China). And if the rumors aren't true, stop pretending flirting is part of a reporter's arsenal.

Iraq's attending this conference with government officials. Presumably their hands are out.

And Iraq is one of the most corrupt countries in the world and has been
for over a decade -- see the rankings on Transparency Index.

Great to meet university students - they're angry at Iraq's politicians for stealing their future. @BBCWorld#iraq

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Yes, the students are angry, as are the people of Iraq.

Iraq is an oil rich country raking in billions in oil revenues each year
-- billions more than they have millions of people. Yet government
corruption is so great that this oil rich country now has to beg the
International Money Fund for dollars. You don't catch oil rich Saudi
Arabia doing that.

Where is the money going?

That's an important question also in terms of who benefits.

It is an important question.

And it got asked in Friday's State Dept press briefing moderated by spokesperson Elizabeth Trudeau:

QUESTION: It seems the State Department did a great job hosting all those international conferences on Iraq.MS TRUDEAU: Thank you. We appreciate it. It was a good team.QUESTION: No, terrific, and I was very pleased to see the Kurdish – KRG representative was there as well.MS TRUDEAU: She was.QUESTION: And that was terrific. And you even raised more money – somewhat more money.MS TRUDEAU: Over $2.1 billion for Iraq.QUESTION: And you said, if I recall correctly, 2 billion was the goal. So you raised more than your goal?MS TRUDEAU: That’s correct.QUESTION: So I have a question for the next phase.MS TRUDEAU: Yeah.QUESTION: Because the Iraqi Government’s a – well, it ranks
161 out of 168 countries for corruption in Transparency International’s
index, and it’s not known particularly for its honest government. What
mechanisms are in place to make sure that this money is spent correctly,
and since the Kurdistan region hosts two-thirds of the displaced
persons and the refugees from the war with [the Islamic State], to ensure that the
Kurdistan region gets its fair share of the – this humanitarian aid?MS TRUDEAU: Well, I’d start off by saying that the United
States is grateful for each of the countries and organizations who were
represented at the conference. As you know, this was a tremendous
success, so thanks for recognizing that. These countries and
organizations who participated are demonstrating important leadership,
and they’re making it possible for Iraqi citizens displaced by [the Islamic State] to
return – to choose to return – to their homes, to receive the services
they need in order to rebuild their community.Speaking specifically about the money, because I do want to discuss
that a little, pledges from these international donors will go to four
critical need areas in Iraq: humanitarian assistance, de-mining, the
UNDP Funding Facility for Immediate Stabilization, and the Funding
Facility for Expanded Stabilization. The latter, it’s my understanding,
functions as a bridging effort between the Iraqi Government and the
coalition in areas liberated by [the Islamic State].In terms of the Iraqi Government’s work on this, our partnership with
the Iraqi Government is deep and it’s strong. This is something that
we’ve spoken frequently about in our support of the government as they
seek to reform their own efforts in doing this, so it’s something that
we’re very closely invested in.In your question on what money is going where, the conference just
wrapped up, so I’m not going to get ahead of that. What we will say,
which we have always said, is that funding and the support will go
through Baghdad, but we are very aware of the impact that certain areas
of the country have experienced at the hands of [the Islamic State].QUESTION: And doubtless you have in mind measures to make sure
that Baghdad spends the money appropriately and it doesn’t go into
people’s pockets?

MS TRUDEAU: So that’s one of the conversations that we continue to have with U.S. aid regardless of where it goes in the world.

Did you notice Trudeau's long, long response which finally boiled down to "I'm not going to get ahead of that."

She has no answer.

They held a conference, raised money and are now handing it over with no checks or balances on it to ensure that the money goes where it's needed.

RUDAW reports:The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is concerned that, while it
hosts nearly 2 million internally displaced Iraqis and is a key force on
the frontlines in the war against the Islamic State, it will not get
its share of the $2.1 billion pledged for Iraq at a conference in
Washington this week.“We are talking to the international community to respect the great
responsibility that the Kurdistan Region is facing regarding the ISIS
war and the refugee crisis,” Falah Mustafa, head of the Kurdistan
Regional Government’s foreign relations department, told Rudaw English.

Islamic
State (IS) militants launched bomb attacks targeting civilians fleeing
the militant-seized town of Shirqat in Iraq's Salahudin province on
Saturday, killing 13 and injuring 19 others, a provincial security
source said. In one attack, a suicide
bomber detonated his explosive vest among a crowd of families in western
Shirqat, some 280 km north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, after they
left their homes to seek help from the security forces outside the
besieged town, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. The blast left 11 people dead and nine others wounded, most of them women and children, the source said. In another attack, a bomb
planted on a road outside Shirqat went off near a group of fleeing
families, killing two children and wounding 10, the source added.

About Me

We do not open attachments. Stop e-mailing them. Threats and abusive e-mail are not covered by any privacy rule. This isn't to the reporters at a certain paper (keep 'em coming, they are funny). This is for the likes of failed comics who think they can threaten via e-mails and then whine, "E-mails are supposed to be private." E-mail threats will be turned over to the FBI and they will be noted here with the names and anything I feel like quoting.
This also applies to anyone writing to complain about a friend of mine. That's not why the public account exists.